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Police are investigating a religious cult of predominantly wealthy people linked to human sacrifice in the country.

The Observer has learnt that Police earlier this year, acting on a tip-off, sanctioned an investigation into claims that some wealthy people in the country are responsible for the spiralling acts of child human sacrifice in the country.

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Authorities in West Africa have in the recent past fought running battles with cult members. On August 6, cult members shot and killed a policeman in Nigeria who was considered a threat to the cult’s activities in Adigbe area.

In the same country, 13 students were killed in clashes between cults calling themselves the Black Axe and the Black Eye, all said to be practising black magic. Some of their activities include killing, rape, extortion and theft.

Nigeria Police also clashed with the Boko Haram cult, killing 700 people and arresting hundreds of members of the group.

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But in December 2008, the arrest of businessman Godfrey Kato Kajubi in connection with the kidnap and ritual killing of 12-year-old Joseph Kasirye, brought to light many other cases totalling 318 in 2008 – up from 230 in 2006.

Kajubi is accused of buying the head of the boy for witchcraft to boost his wealth. Soon after Kajubi’s arrest, another man, Abbas Mugerwa, was arrested in Masajja after he beheaded his twins.

Mugerwa told The Observer that a rich man had asked him for his twins in exchange for Shs 50million, a deal Mugerwa agreed to; prompting him to behead the three-year olds.

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Florence Kirabira, Acting Head of Child and Family Protection Unit, says an assessment by Police has revealed that many Ugandans are obsessed with money and becoming rich quickly without working for it.

Some of those obsessed with getting rich quick are ready to do anything, including killing –if that is what the witchdoctor recommends – to reach their goal.

“It’s a difficult and complex situation where children have been sacrificed because of an urge for people to get wealthy. We have people who believe in getting rich [at all costs],” Kirabira says.

These are stories from Uganda. But things like this are happening all over Africa. In some case it is albinos, in some cases people with birth defects, and in this case – children. I wish I could point to a singular influence on the cause of something like this, but I can’t.

Africa appears to have an immutable core of native belief surrounded by this swirling and ever changing mass of imposed beliefs. Most of these cults that they’re referring to in the article are actually militant Muslim organizations that are espousing hard-line Shariah law. The Boko Haram? The one that had a quiet little war with Nigerian security forces? They want to remove all tenants of Western thought, including teaching that the world is round and that rain is made from evaporated water.

This is all fascinating to me because of the mixture of permanent old and constant flux new. In twenty years, this could be a mix of Chinese ancestor worship and traditional Africa spirituality. I think the top layer will always change, but the stuff under it won’t.

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My name is Zachary Whitten. I live in Memphis. I work at Combustion. I make the pretty things on the Internet work. I drink. I plot and I scheme. I occasionally write things that will probably never see the light of day.